NAMI wants action on ‘illegal’ marketing of plant-based products

The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) has called on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to have primary jurisdiction of plant-based protein products rather than the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Speaking at the IPPE meat trade show in Atlanta, Georgia, NAMI’s senior vice president for regulatory and scientific affairs Mark Dopp discussed some of the top regulatory issues affecting meat processors in the past year and what challenges to expect for 2019.

One of the challenges outlined by Dopp was the marketing of meat alternatives in the US.

Dopp explained to GlobalMeatNews​ that all plant-based protein companies that label their products as ‘meat’ are illegal and are only “getting away​” with this due to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently enforcing the labelling of plant-based products.

“Plant-based products are being marketed incorrectly and are misleading consumers​,” Dopp told GlobalMeatNews​. “It is illegal to label a plant-based product as meat item and we want a level playing field for meat alternatives. Under the control of USDA, this issue would be resolved.”​

The issue was raised in France last year after French MPs voted in favour of banning food producers from labelling vegetarian-based products as a meat item, to avoid confusion among consumers. Following the regulation, producers across France are now no longer able to describe plant-based products that are not solely made of meat as ‘sausages’ or ‘steaks’, for example.

Dopp also discussed the EAT-Lancet report, published last year, saying that it “did not bode well for the ​[red meat processing] industry​” and simply “ignored​” all the key nutritional values that meat consumption had for consumers.

2 comments

Factory Processed Veg and vegan Food

Posted by dm,
11 March 2019 - 14:42 GMT

The point is this. What precisely has these novel food products been through regulatory investigation. What is cell cultured something if it starts out as a plant and ends up looking like familiar food. What precisely has been done in the processing factory. Is this on the label so that consumers can decide if that is indeed what they want for their children going forward. How do we know that the cultured cell will stop performing inside our bodies. How do we know it won't interact with our normal cells. Once we get past the trendy marketing hype these are the questions which must be answered.

Play on words

Posted by Mark Elia,
14 February 2019 - 14:37 GMT

Again the consumer is being mislead by large Corporations. This has to stop. Small companies like mine work very hard to be transparent. Labeling is a very important topic at our plant.
Everyone needs to play by the same rules.